


Etch Our Story in Lines and Shading

by chromyrose



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artists, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, Future Fic, Light Angst, M/M, Nude Modeling, Permanent Injury, Reunions, non-sexual nudity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 14:25:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7511725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chromyrose/pseuds/chromyrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After years apart, Bokuto accidentally books Akaashi to be his model for his junior thesis project. They end up bare in more ways than one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Etch Our Story in Lines and Shading

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! This is yet another SASO Bonus Round fill that was just too long to be posted to my [collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7462752/chapters/16959021). The prompt was "Remember when Akaashi is Bokuto's model for his art project?"
> 
> The title comes from a quote from make-up and tattoo artist Kat Von D: “I am a canvas of my experiences, my story is etched in lines and shading, and you can read it on my arms, my legs, my shoulders, and my stomach.”

It took Bokuto too long to decide what his term project was going to be, according to the third-year Fine Arts adviser. True, it wasn't his thesis project quite yet, but third-year projects were often important in discovering what it is you do or don't want to devote your entire senior year to. And the exhibition at the end of the semester was a very, very good place to make the right impressions and win the right grants. 

Bokuto let the nagging go in one ear and out the other, because this wasn't why he decided on art school. He knew the adviser was coming from a place of wisdom, of trying to help him succeed, and he wasn't ungrateful, but he also knew that he could put out an absolutely stellar showing of art in half the time of most of his classmates, and that he hadn't been _wasting time_ , just exploring his options. 

“Thanks for the advice, Sato-sensei, but I actually just came in here to ask: Can I have the number for the model registry?” 

–

The idea had occurred to Bokuto in the gym. Not his school's gym, no, because why would an art school have a gymnasium? Most of the people Bokuto knew got their workouts in carrying canvases up and down stairs and wrestling with their easels. That wasn't enough for Bokuto, ex-volleyball champion that he was, but he was lucky enough to get a student discount to a public gym not far from his apartment, and that was good enough. 

It was there, surrounded by the permeating smell of sweat and tears, that he fondly recalled the sensations of being on the court. The way his teammates looked when they dived for a receive, or jumped for a serve. The smell of the gym triggered the sights of volleyball, and suddenly Bokuto wanted nothing more than to draw that experience. To put the heft of a volleyball against his palm down on the page. Athleticism wasn't just raw power, there was beauty in the way everything moved. 

And as much as he would have loved just to draw from an actual volleyball match, the pace was just too quick in a real game to get down anything but a scribbled pose. The next best thing, then, was to use the school's model registry, and hope that someone who fit his vision was on their payroll so that he could borrow them for a weekend of intense sketching. 

“I'm looking for a male model,” he murmured into the phone in the privacy of his bedroom; it felt weird to be describing a person the way that butchers talked about meat. “Definitely athletic. But not a body-builder type! Just... someone who's all lean from playing a sport, or a runner, or something.” 

The girl on the other end of the line, an assistant in the Fine Arts department, giggled. “I think I've got the perfect person for you, Bokuto-san,” she said. “He's available all day this Saturday, too. I'll send him your address and tell him to be there at... hmm... is 1 pm okay?” 

“Sounds awesome, Nakayama-chan.”

“Alright. Akaashi Keiji, 1 pm on Saturday. Good luck!” 

She hung up the phone. It took another five minutes for Bokuto to hang up on his end.

–

_Akaashi Keiji._

The name played on loop in Bokuto's mind for the next three days. Was it _the_ Akaashi Keiji? _His_ Akaashi? His precious setter, the one who had been there for every triumph, every upset, every mood swing, every bottle of air salonpas until Bokuto's future in volleyball crumbled beneath him along with his ankle during his last appearance at Nationals? 

The Akaashi Keiji that Bokuto had been avoiding ever since? 

Even too many beers on Friday night didn't help him get to sleep any easier, didn't help Bokuto's mind stay off the subject of the impending modeling session. Even a greasy breakfast and intense scrub down of his living room floor the next morning only left him hoping it would be _another_ Akaashi Keiji knocking at his door. 

It wasn't. Everything about Akaashi was so immediately familiar, from his soft hair to his sleepy gaze and the smell of his deodorant, that Bokuto was promptly knocked back about five years, suddenly found himself in Fukurodani's third gymnasium. 

“Ah, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi said simply. He didn't look at all surprised, so he'd probably been given Bokuto's name in advance, too. Did he also stay up half the night wondering how this reunion might go? Bokuto's gaze darted to the clock – 1:00 exactly. 

“A-Akaashi!” Bokuto cried, trying to muster up his usual energy and failing. He still felt torn between past and present, immense joy and serious regret. “Come in, come in, we're set up in the living room. Do you, um, do you want a drink or anything?”

“No, thank you,” was the sparse reply, as Akaashi simply toed off his shoes and stepped into the apartment, brushing right past Bokuto with ease. Bokuto watched him move through his space with reverent awe; he was taller now, broader now. He still looked like some kind of Roman demigod in faded jeans and a fitted cardigan. 

And then there was no more fitted cardigan, as Akaashi draped it over the back of a chair. Bokuto suddenly remembered in graphic detail that he'd hired Akaashi to come over and model for him, _nude_. 

“Akaashi!” He cried again, and Akaashi stopped unbuttoning his shirt. He'd only gotten the top one undone, thankfully. “We don't have to rush into this, you know. We should catch up! Are you still playing volleyball? Why are you a model?” 

Akaashi's expression took on a very familiar exasperated look, and he sighed. “Bokuto-san, I'm here because you are paying me to do my job. I don't think this is the time–“

“Nonsense, of course it's the time! God, fuck, I haven't seen you in like three years...” 

“Because you started avoiding me after Nationals.” Akaashi reminded him brusquely. “We should start before the sun goes down; it's best to draw in natural light.” 

Speechless to respond, hurting from the sharpness of Akaashi's tone and words, Bokuto moved over to his easel set up with a giant pad of paper and his side table covered in all the supplies his fingers might possibly itch for. He pointed to where he'd laid out his small collection of yoga mats to form a larger floor mat.

“I thought you could stand there,” Bokuto explained, his voice sounding hollow even in his own ears. “I was thinking my project would be about the beauty in sports and shit, so those were the poses I was imagining. Like spikes and tosses... fucking baseball, I don't know, Akaashi, are you actually going to pretend we're strangers?!” 

Akaashi paused while unbuttoning his shirt a second time, this time baring a small expanse of skin between his nipples. 

“I was following your lead, Captain. You pretended we were strangers for the last few months before your graduation.” 

“But... but I was always the one who did stupid shit, and you were always the one who didn't let me get away with it! That's what made us such a good team, Akaashi...” 

Akaashi looked down to the floor, shook his head. “Bokuto-san, when you left... that's when we stopped being a team. Everyone knew that I would be the next Captain, they looked to me, and I couldn't... It was one thing that you were injured. But I never imagined that you wouldn't be in the bleachers until the day they had to forcibly remove you.”

“I knew you could handle it, though,” Bokuto said quickly, stepping closer to Akaashi again like he was trying to corner a wounded animal. “Hell, you were the man behind the man even when I was the Captain. But I couldn't... I didn't want the team to see me like that, when I could barely stand on my own. I didn't want _you_ to see me like that. I wanted you to see me as your Ace!” 

“And I never stopped seeing you that way,” Akaashi agreed. “You were just the Ace that ran away. And after that, I wasn't the same as a setter. I could play just as perfectly as before, but it didn't mean anything to me...” 

“Akaashi...” 

“Bokuto-san. Drawing. I've been on the clock since I came in, I won't make any exceptions for you.” 

Bokuto huffed, and retreated back to his art station. He busied himself rearranging his media, grabbing for something messy over his neat row of sharp pencils. He rolled the charcoal between his forefingers and thumb until Akaashi cleared his throat, then he looked up. Akaashi was naked, fully and truly naked, and Bokuto forgot how to breath. His skin looked soft to the touch even from a distance, but every time he shifted the corded muscle moved underneath it like temptation. His limbs were long, his thighs were sturdy, and his abdomen didn't ripple, it was drawn so taut. Bokuto wanted to sink his fingers into the roundness of Akaashi's butt. He didn't let himself think about the cock hanging down his front. 

Akaashi was fussing with a cooking timer. “How long should we start?” 

“Huh? Oh, uh, thirty seconds. I... I think I need to loosen up.” 

Akaashi raised his eyebrows, as if to say, ' _Too much information, Bokuto-san_ ', but set his timer and put it down on a nearby chair. He took a deep breath, rolled out his body from his shoulders to his ankles, then arranged himself into something dynamic, the squat before a jump. 

Bokuto drew. Thirty second poses left no time for anything but that, so his hands flew across the giant page in sweeps, pinning down the important parts: the weight resting in his calves, the pull of his shoulder blades against the skin of his back. The timer beeped, Akaashi shifted, and Bokuto flipped the page. It was easy to forget who he was drawing in favor of the what, the how. Thirty second poses were headless, featureless drawings, and as long as he wasn't looking at Akaashi's face, then the body wasn't Akaashi's, either. 

Five minutes and ten pages later, Akaashi turned his timer off and grabbed a bath robe from his bag to preserve his modesty. Bokuto obligingly looked away until he was decent, then stood up and wiped the charcoal from his fingers onto his pants. 

“Those poses were incredible. I'll go get you some water, just, uh, wait here. Or go to the bathroom, if you need to, it's the second door on the right down the hall.” 

Bokuto rinsed his hands off properly in the kitchen, and then grabbed a drinking glass for Akaashi.

Fuck, Akaashi was in his living room. Fuck, Akaashi was pretty much naked in his living room. Fuck, Akaashi was beautiful and pretty much naked in his living room. Fuck, Akaashi had a cut cock and it was long and lean like he was, probably not much of a grower but Bokuto was thirsty for it anyways – 

Fuck. He thought he'd buried these feelings years ago. 

–

“So,” Bokuto started loudly as he came back into the living room with the water. Akaashi was sitting in a chair, checking something on his phone; he looked up at the sound of Bokuto's voice. “How did you end up being an artists' model? I mean, I won't lie to you, you're fucking incredible to draw, but...” 

“But it seems indecent?” Akaashi guessed as he accepted the glass. “I got into it for the same reason every model does, for the money. I would probably be making more if I had attempted to model clothes, but this is more reliable work, and more... intimate. I would really rather not have my face or body plastered on any billboards in Tokyo.” 

“Even though you're... well, you're...” 

“Naked?” 

“Yeah...” Bokuto bit his lip, but Akaashi surprised him by laughing. 

“I never though I'd see a day where you have more shame than I do, Bokuto-san. But I have never minded my body so much. And I guess with artists, it seems more like they forget I'm even a person, when they're drawing me. So it's not too bad.” 

Bokuto minded; he thought of Akaashi in his classrooms, surrounded by horny young adult students like him – they were definitely looking. Girls probably tittered behind their hands. Guys probably envied his body, _as they should_. 

“Bokuto-san's facial expression number 6,” Akaashi recited from nowhere. “Jealousy. I was worried you would have been different, but you haven't changed at all.” 

Akaashi was smiling at him so fondly, it made Bokuto's heart hurt. “I-Is this about that thing where you made lists of all my weaknesses...?” He asked, and Akaashi outright laughed. 

“That was probably weird,” he agreed. “But I liked being able to rationalize everything. And someone who wears his heart on his sleeve is so easy to make lists out of, Bokuto-san.”

Bokuto pouted. His heart was beating hard in his chest. He wasn't sure how much of his expression was playful exaggeration and how much was genuine hurt. 

“I am not that easy to read,” he grumbled. “You don't even know who the person I love is!” 

Akaashi's expression sobered, suddenly, and what remained of his smile looked worn and soft.

“Of course I do, Bokuto-san. That person is me.” 

Bokuto nearly babbled incomprehensibly in denial, but there was gravity in Akaashi's voice that kept him rooted. Akaashi was always best at that. “...It's always been you. I couldn't be weak in front of you.”

Akaashi got up, and when he got to where Bokuto was standing, he leaned in with no respect for personal space, as close as they could be looking at each other without going cross-eyed. 

“There are tears in your eyes,” he murmured. “You _have_ changed, Bokuto-san. You're being weak in front of me right now.”

“Because I want to keep you this time!” 

Akaashi leaned back, smiling like he had a secret. Akaashi always had secrets, but that was okay, because Bokuto never had any and sucked at keeping them, and he needed someone who would balance him out. 

“Hmm, isn't _that_ a good idea? Another good idea would probably be to get back to drawing. I've rested up enough.” 

So the afternoon passed as such: one-minute poses grew into two-minute poses grew into five-minute poses, with Akaashi taking his breaks every twenty minutes. Bokuto couldn't get more than ten words out of him for the rest of their session, and he only got ten when Akaashi saw his drawings and praised his “unexpected talent.” 

He looked away again as Akaashi dressed himself properly, after the Sun had called an end to their day. Even so, Bokuto was babbling: 

“Are you sure you can't stay for dinner? I know this really awesome curry place nearby, or we could go to a conbini and get enough riceballs for an army--”

He was silenced by Akaashi's hand falling gently on his forearm. Bokuto blinked, feeling his eyes go wide – owlish, his mother always called that expression. 

“I put my number in your phone when you went to the bathroom earlier,” Akaashi confessed, his voice rough. “Don't run away. I want you to keep me this time, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed it please let me know with a kudos or a comment! You can find me elsewhere online on [twitter](http://twitter.com/haikyuutiie) or [tumblr](http://zahhaked.tumblr.com)


End file.
